This is pretty big news that shows the institutional power of the tea party conservative base. In the wake of last night’s disaster in NY-23, John Cornyn, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP campaign arm for Senate races, announced that his organization will not endorse or spend money in “contested primaries.”

“We will not spend money in a contested primary,” Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told ABC News in a telephone interview today.

“There’s no incentive for us to weigh in,” said Cornyn, R-Texas. “We have to look at our resources. . . . We’re not going to throw money into a [primary] race leading up to the election.”

Cornyn said his pledge extends to races for open Senate seats — not incumbents who may face primaries next year. The NRSC so far has endorsed candidates in four open Senate seats — Florida, Missouri, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.

If this were happening in the Democratic Party, I would praise it, so let me briefly do the same here. People on the ground should decide who they want to be their nominee, not Senators playing favorites from back in Washington. Committees like this should respect their base and allow them to pick the candidates, and primaries are generally healthy events for parties. I certainly wish Rahm Emanuel heeded this.

But this does show the real fear out there in the GOP establishment of angering their base. I’ve already documented how Carly Fiorina and Charlie Crist have been targeted by conservatives for defeat in favor of their preferred candidates, despite establishment backing. Cornyn is basically kowtowing to that dynamic, and so are the candidates themselves, according to the story:

Asked what endorsements mean, then, Cornyn said some candidates may want the backing to help line up support and financing. Beyond that, however, he said NRSC endorsements won’t mean very much in practice.

“Endorsements, frankly, are overrated…. They can to some extent be a negative,” Cornyn said, noting that candidates in New Hampshire, California, and Colorado, for example, have asked the national party to stay out of their races.

Wow. GOP candidates for the US Senate cannot have the liability of the NRSC working for them. That’s pretty astonishing.

30 Responses
to “Cornyn Forced By Teabagger Base To Keep NRSC Out Of Senate Primaries”

All politics being local, I do think primaries are generally a good thing when they encourage discussion of topics by candidates which might not come up in uncontested races, and when incumbents have become complacent about their roles as representatives.

But to shy away entirely from the national party? yikes, that says a lot about the party’s brand.

If I were a Republican candidate, I don’t think I’d want any of them weighing in on my campaign either. Given what they’ve done for candidates so far this year, it would be less embarrassing to fail on my own ….

How convenient for the GOP and the NRSC.
Now, they don’t have to be made accountable for the policies — like demolishing Glass-Steagall, like handing the economic control of this nation to Wall Street to siphon off into tax havens — that the GOP controlled Congress implemented and that 5 terms of GOP presidents oversaw.

Swell for them.

Want to avoid accountability?
Claim that the ‘teabaggers’ shouldn’t be messed with.

Coryn has his head so far up his ass that I doubt he’d recognize daylight if he ever caught sight of it.

Shorter Coryn: we don’t stand for anything, and being amorphous and invisible will enhance our chances of never being held accountable.

Could we please just cue up the video of Grassley shouting about “Death Panels”? And then maybe ask Coryn if he can recall whichparty Grassley happens to belong to?

It would probably be the party of “we’re now invisible”.
Very convenient for these idiots.

Once you remember that Freedumbworks = Teabaggers = Koch & Company, then you see that it’s Streetocrats in action. They play in the opposition to the Streetocrats who are actually in the chairs of power.

Streetocrats don’t mind screwing each other over, either. Paulson screwed Lehman because he could. He helped AIG and Goldman Sachs because he could. Geithner will help/is helping Goldman Sachs because he can.

Rahm is just trying to make sure he navigates to his best interest, so adios Sarbanes-Oxley! Streetocrats 4 EVAH!

Correct. But Phil Gramm, R-Tx, was pushing it in the Senate, along with this GOP Senate colleagues.

Summers and Rubin gave Clinton terrible advice, but recall that by 1998 when Glass-Steagall was discussed (and the Enron loophole would soon slip into the legislation), the GOP – particularly in the Senate – was the one making the rules. By that time, Clinton was mostly playing defense.

egregious is right, it was bipartisan. here is my old diary on the legislative history of glass-steagall repeal — and for good measure a couple more on the cmfa 2000 (which among other things is where the enron loop hole was put)

No way the NRSC and RNC will stay out of Senate primaries. It would be electoral suicide not to vet candidates for national office. You can bet the NRSC will pull every string possible to get their “Smilin’ Bobs” on ballots in the wake of the NY-23 debacle. The only question will be how invisible they can make themselves to the Teabaggers.

If the teabaggers can gin up hate and fear among the evangelical unibrows around the country, why can’t we progressives get a “grass roots” in-your-face organization going as well?
I’ll be there manning the front row on the picket lines when we get one.
Just like that cow-plop Texan Cronyn shows, put a little pressure on the GOP’ers and they fold up like cheap lawn chairs.
Anybody out there know where I can sign up and “take it to the streets” – Like a gentleman of course. I’ll check back to see if there are any replies to this inquiry…